Zac Brown Band and Frank Ocean Debut High on Billboard 200

July 19, 2012 (2:35 am) GMT

Zac Brown Band's 'Uncaged' and Frank Ocean's 'Channel Orange' land at No. 1 and No. 2 respectively on the U.S. album chart.

Country group Zac Brown Band scored their second No. 1 on Billboard Hot 200 when their album "Uncaged" debuted atop the chart on July 18, Wednesday. The album managed to sell 234,000 units on its opening week, overshadowing the band's previous release, "You Get What You Give", which sold 153,000 when it was released in 2010.

Industry sources predicted that the album could possibly move 220,000 copies but it did much better than that. The sales were perhaps aided by the band's promotion which included TV performances on CBS' "Late Show with David Letterman" on July 11 and on NBC's "Today" on July 13. While it wasn't specified, it was suggested that around 25,000 to 30,000 of the sales were from Amazon's MP3 sale that's set at $3.99.

Another debut made the No. 2 spot and it's "Channel Orange" from R&B singer Frank Ocean. His first album moved 131,000 units, most of which were from iTunes. Only around 3,000 of the sales were physical CDs. Since the album was made available on iTunes on July 10, a week ahead of the wide release, retailers of the physical copies were told to start selling the albums as soon as they got them.

Adele's "21" slipped one slot to No. 8. At 73 weeks, her sophomore set has now spent more weeks in the top ten than any other record by a female artist. She surpassed Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" which previously held the title. Linkin Park and Maroon 5, who reigned at No. 1 and No. 2 respectively last week, also took a tumble. They fell to the sixth and fifth places respectively.

The album sales over the past chart week which ended on July 15 totaled 5.56 million which is down by 4% when compared to last week's sum of 5.80 million units.